Video: Adding a vocoder

I exported a few stems out of the Pro Tools radio mix session into Reason for this next portion of the course. These stems are roughly mixed, and as you can see by looking at the Mixer section in Reason, I have lead vocals, background vocals, drums, bass, synths, and guitars. To the right of the guitars, I have a copy of the lead vocal track and a mixer, which is acting as a submixer for all of the vocoding that I'm about to add. For those of you who might not be familiar with vocoders, I feel confident that you've heard them before, as they rose to popularity in the 1970s on many funk and disco records and have a few periods of resurgence since then.

Watch the Online Video Course Remixing Techniques: Arranging and Song Form

2h 44mIntermediateDec 10, 2012

Viewers:
in countries
Watching now:

In this course, author Josh Harris shows how to create radio and club arrangements, and a radio edit of a club mix. He utilizes four different digital audio workstations (DAWs)—Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Logic, and Reason—and shows how to build different arrangements from the ground up, by adding guitars, drums, bass, and synths. Each DAW explores different types of arranging scenarios. Plus, learn how to add ear candy and take your arrangements to another level.

Topics include:

Reviewing the different types of arranging: music, remix, and radio/club

Adding a vocoder

I exported a few stems out of the Pro Tools radio mix session into Reason forthis next portion of the course.These stems are roughly mixed, and as you can see by looking at the Mixersection in Reason, I have lead vocals, background vocals, drums, bass,synths, and guitars.To the right of the guitars, I have a copy of the lead vocal track and a mixer,which is acting as a submixer for all of the vocoding that I'm about to add.For those of you who might not be familiar with vocoders, I feel confident thatyou've heard them before, as they rose to popularity in the 1970s on many funkand disco records and have a few periods of resurgence since then.

The most popular vocoder sound is the robot voice. And before I begin to recordthe vocoder part, let me briefly take you on a tour of the setup.In the most basic terms, a vocoder has an input for a carrier input and aninput for a modulator input.As we can see on the back of the Reason BV12 vocoder, the carrier input has alittle keyboard icon by it and the modulator input has a microphone by it.The Lead Vocal track is routed to the modulator input, and the Thor PolyphonicSynth is routed to the carrier input.

Now the trick to using a vocoder in this setup is that the track has to beplaying or else the lead vocal won't be able to send its signal to the modulator input.I'll begin by recording MIDI on the Thor Synth track.I've got a 1-bar precount setup on the sequencer, and I will scroll down alittle bit so I can look at the Thor Polyphonic Synth. And let's record our part in.The vocoder part that I am going to add will mirror the bass line, in terms ofnote changes and when those note changes happen.

(song playing)As you take a look at the MIDI data, you can see that I've added sixteenthnotes, basically bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, following the bassline, and I feel that this is an appropriate pattern to add because the pointof adding the vocoder is to use it as a thickening tool, a layer with the leadvocal. It's not meant to be a part that stands out on its own.

Let's get out of Edit mode, and I'll increase the size of this view. And all Ineed to do to incorporate the vocoder into verse 2 is copy and paste the MIDIdata. Option+Drag it. I know that verse 2 begins at measure 29. And let's take alisten to make sure that the MIDI data from verse 1 works with verse 2.(song playing)And it sounds like it is working.

Now, for those of you whose ears might not be finally tuned to the sound of avocoder, I'll play verse 2 again, but I will mute out the lead vocal.We'll go to our mixer and I'll mute out lead vocal on the mixer, and we wouldjust hear the Lead Vox copy trigger in the vocoder.(song playing)As you can hear, it adds a really cool texture to the Vocal.

(song playing) I'll put the Lead Vocal back in.(song playing)And a word of caution when using vocoders: a huge piece of the equation is thepatch you're using from the synth. In this case I though that Asian Poly was anappropriate sound to layer underneath the lead vocal.You have to decide what role you want the vocoder to play when you put in thetrack: Is it going to act as a lead vocal or as a lead sound, a hook line ofsome sort, or is it merely going to serve as a textural layer, which is what weare doing in this case?In order to bring this part back into my radio mix session that I started inPro Tools, I will need to stem out just the vocoder part by itself from measure1 until the end of the file.

If you happen to be working on your entire track within one DAW, then you neednot include this step in the process.I hope this process helps you think of a vocoder as something other than a cooleffect on a lead vocal.I mostly use them for layering and thickening, and I believe it provides thatextra bit of depth that may not jump out at you at first, but if it were mutedin the track, you would certainly notice that something was missing.

There are currently no FAQs about Remixing Techniques: Arranging and Song Form.

Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

Already a member ?

Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
Learn more

Upgrade to our Annual Premium Membership today and get even more value from your lynda.com subscription:

“In a way, I feel like you are rooting for me. Like you are really invested in my experience, and want me to get as much out of these courses as possible this is the best place to start on your journey to learning new material.”— Nadine H.

Thanks for signing up.

We’ll send you a confirmation email shortly.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.

Keep up with news, tips, and latest courses with emails from lynda.com.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.